While it still unclear whether the Obama stimulus plan will be enough to pull the economy out of its nosedive - Martin Wolf at the Financial Times laments that the plan is not large enough and will not get enough money into the economy quickly enough (listening to him today on CNN, I suspect that he may be right given the increasingly huge drops in private sector spending ) - one thing that is clear is that the GOP seems totally out of touch with reality. Indeed, the Party's main fixation appears to be political games and stunts that excite the Lunatic GOP base which has no concept of economic issues and remains focused on God, guns, abortion and gay bashing. Frank Rich has a great column that looks at the increasingly marginalized GOP. Here are some highlights:*
The good news for Obama is that he needn’t worry about the Republicans. They’re committing suicide. The morning-after conservative rationalization of Jindal’s flop was that his adenoidal delivery, not his words, did him in, and that media coaching could banish his resemblance to Kenneth the Page of “30 Rock.” That’s denial. For Jindal no less than Obama, form followed content.
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The Louisiana governor, alternately smug and jejune, articulated precisely the ideology — those G.O.P. “policies” in the Times/CBS poll — that Americans reject: the conviction that government is useless and has no role in an emergency. Given that the most mismanaged federal operation in modern memory was inflicted by a Republican White House on Jindal’s own state, you’d think he’d change the subject altogether.
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But like all zealots, Jindal is oblivious to how nonzealots see him. Pleading “principle,” he has actually turned down some $100 million in stimulus money for Louisiana. And, as he proudly explained on “Meet the Press” last weekend, he can’t wait to be judged on “the results” of his heroic frugality. Good luck with that. He’s rejecting aid for a state that ranks fourth in children living below the poverty line and 46th in high school graduation rates, while struggling with a projected budget shortfall of more than $1.7 billion.
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If you’re baffled why the G.O.P. would thrust Jindal into prime time, the answer is desperation. Eager to update its image without changing its antediluvian (or antebellum) substance, the party is trying to lock down its white country-club blowhards. . . . What such G.O.P. “stars” as Sanford and Jindal have in common, besides their callous neo-Hoover ideology, are their phony efforts to portray themselves as populist heroes. Their role model is W., that brush-clearing “rancher” by way of Andover, Yale and Harvard.
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Rich, however, also notes that the GOP's self-destruction does not guarant Obama success in and of itself. The nation has great hopes in him and he must find a way to deliver. In doing so, I hope he will ignore the far right, abandon "bipartisanship" and be more bold in his programs. Here are Rich's further remarks:
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But that good news for Obama is countered by the bad. The genuine populist rage in the country — aimed at greedy C.E.O.’s, not at the busted homeowners mocked as “losers” by Santelli — cannot be ignored or finessed. . . . Therein lies the Catch-22 that could bring the recovery down. As Obama said, we can’t move forward without a functioning financial system. But voters of both parties will demand that their congressmen reject another costly rescue of it.
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Handing more public money to the reckless banks that invented this culture and stuck us with the wreckage is the new third rail of American politics. If Obama doesn’t forge a better plan, neither his immense popularity nor even political foes as laughable as Jindal can insulate him from getting burned.
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